Blade II is, of course, the sequel to Blade, but now with a shiny new director (Guillermo del Toro!). It starts Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Normal Reedus, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Thomas Kretschmann, and Luke Goss.
It's been a couple of years since the events of Blade, and Blade (Snipes) is hunting for Whistler (Kristofferson) across Eastern Europe. Although Blade pretty much implies that Whistler dies, what actually happened was that Blade walked away after Whistler was bitten and heard a gunshot...but didn't stick around to make sure he didn't turn. Sloppy, Blade.
Anyway, Whistler's been kept in stasis for all that time (except maybe not, because he talks about being tortured), Blade finds and frees him, but really, that's not the point. The point is that there's a new strain of vampire in town, starting with Nomak (Goss), our patient zero. This new strain, the Reapers, feed on vampires and their faces open up in a really nice bit of special effects. So the king (or whatever) of the vampires, Damaskinos (Kretschmann) puts Blade together with the "Blood Pack," a group of vampires who have been training to hunt Blade, in order to hunt down and kill Nomak.
Fuckery ensues, the Reaper Strain spreads, and pretty much everyone betrays Blade, including his new weapons designer and partner, Scud (Reedus). Blade winds up catching feelings for the vampire king's daughter Nyssa (Valera), but she gets infected and burns in the sun, and Blade goes back to killing vampires.
I said waaaaaay back in 2011 when I talked about Blade that it's fun, but it doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it. This one makes more sense, inasmuch as the Big Bad's plan isn't completely stupid, but the movie still kind of flows like a game of Fiasco - that is, like it's being made up as we go along and beats are thrown in just for the sake of a twist (Scud's betrayal doesn't feel earned, but Blade being aware of his betrayal and immediately blowing him up really doesn't feel earned). The supporting cast isn't bad; we've got Ron Perlman as one of the Blood Pack who's really just here to kill Blade, and a younger Donnie Yen as "Snowman", a Blood-Packer (ew) who gets to be mute and badass. The effects aren't bad, the fight scenes are pretty well choreographed. We've got some early-aughts CGI where it's not really necessary, but it's not too egregious.
It definitely feels like somebody read Vampire when making this movie, and that's fine, those are good vibes. Overall it's a fun horror-action-superhero movie, though it's pretty fluff once you scratch the surface.
My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: Medium
Next up: Burlesque
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